Friday, September 30, 2016

The noble ability to grow.

Dwight
Eisenhower was among the leading warriors of the “greatest generation”.A career soldier he emerged from World War II
as supreme commander and hero.It brought
him to the presidency in 1952.Throughout his tenure, he remained a warrior, this time with aid of the
Dulles brothers, in an oft times chilling Cold War.For sure Ike had accomplishments during his
tenure, perhaps most notably launching in interstate highway system that
connects us, east to west and north to south.But perhaps most quoted and thus remembered was the general’s brief end-of-term
speech warning about the dangers of “the military-industrial
complex”.He lived in a time when
points of view and ideology were less fixed and where evolving and sometimes
dramatically changing opinions were lauded not scorned.He appointed two Republicans and two
Democrats to the Supreme Court, a notion that would be unthinkable today.Two of those appointees, one of each party,
moved sharply from the middle or right of center to what would today be
considered the far left ¾ Chief Justice Earl Warren
and Associate William Brennen.Their
votes in Brown, led to the civil rights revolution that ultimately facilitated
electing Barack Obama our president.

I’ve been
thinking of Eisenhower’s era in the last few days and how very much has changed
in our politics, especially as we face the presidential election just weeks
away.How rare it is to see our
politicians or our judges being compelled by experience to modify or even
radically change their views.But it isn’t
American history that brought all this to mind.Rather it was the death of Shimon Peres who was buried in Israel on
Friday.This 93-year-old was a most
modern man with his mind on the future tokened in part by his excitement about
technology.Looking at his story, and
having personally watched it unfold over so many years, I was struck by how
much of a throwback he was to an earlier time when change of mind and heart in
the face of newly learned realities was a badge of honor.

Like
Eisenhower, Peres’ career was formed in warrior days.He was of that generation that faced an
immediate and urgent need to defend itself with no established support
infrastructure.At founding Prime
Minister David Ben Gurion’s behest, a very youthful Peres essentially fathered
Israel’s impressive military-industrial complex.He is considered responsible for the country’s
never acknowledged nuclear program and later for joining in the ill-fated decision
to allow Jewish settlements on the West Bank.It was these life’s experiences and an ability to stand back and
evaluate their consequences that compelled Peres to take a sharp turn from
warrior to hopeful peace advocate.In
fact, like Eisenhower but much more so, Peres now is remembered most as the man
of peace, Rabin’s partner and keeper of the flame in advocating a two-state
solution.Peres sought intellectual and
economic partnership with Israel’s Palestinian neighbors, seeing their children
as his and wanting them to have an equally dignified fulfilling life.

It’s no
wonder the President Obama eulogized
“Shimon” as a friend and a kindred spirit.“I took great pleasure”, he noted, “in my friendship with this older,
wiser man. We shared a love of words and books and history. …Beyond that, I
think our friendship was rooted in the fact that I could somehow see myself in
his story, and maybe he could see himself in mine. …Both of us had lived such
unlikely lives. It was so surprising to
see the two of us where we had started, talking together in the White House,
meeting here in Israel. And I think both of us understood that we were here
only because in some way we reflected the magnificent story of our nations.”Obama saw Peres among “the giants” of our
time impacted by necessities so that “…the child who had wanted to be a “poet
of stars” became a man who built Israel’s defense industry, who laid the foundation
for the formidable armed forces that won Israel’s wars.”But, he went on, “For a younger generation,
Shimon was probably remembered more for a peace process that never reached its
endpoint.”Some, Obama said, considered
him naïve in holding on to the dream of peace, but Peres, more than probably
anyone of his generation, had faith in those young people and in the future, in
the human ability to change and adapt to new information.What a crazy radical idea.

Peres’s end
came days before Jews in Israel and around the world prepare to greet a new
year and prepare to make resolutions for the time to come.You may associate this with the kind of
resolutions talked about when we celebrate our common new year on January
1.It’s totally different.It’s not about losing those excess pounds,
doing more exercise or even finally reading those books at our bedside.Rather the resolution demanded by Rosh
Hashanah and the days of contemplation that follow ¾ “the days of awe”¾ are much more
fundamental.They start with an
evaluation of who we are ¾ what kind of people, what
kind of actions mark our lives.After
asking forgiveness for what we have done wrong, we resolve to be better and to
do better.The assumption here is that
in evaluating where we are relative to the real and ideal world we can change;
we can alter our previously held notions.How refreshing that would be if our leaders and perhaps more important
we ourselves thought in those terms, if we all could be more like Shimon
Peres.He was human, imperfect as are we
all, but he made the effort and opened his heart, at 93 still actively working
for and dreaming of a better world.

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About Me

A branding consultant with decades of experience working with large global clients and brands, he now serves primarily young startup companies. Beginning his professional life as a rabbi of a large urban congregation, he has watched the numbers of the religiously unaffiliated grow in the years since leaving the pulpit. His book, Transcenders: Living beyond religion and the religion wars (available on Amazon) considers this phenomenon. Beyond his consulting practice Prinz spends much of his time writing, including this Blog. He posts to "Beyond All That" only when there is something to say that might add value to the conversation.